Screening and consent
Whether you need signed consent before a credit check depends on which province the home is in. It is not the same across a two-hour drive, and getting it wrong is your liability, not the applicant's.
Last updated 13 September 2026
Province by province
New Brunswick
Written consent, before the check
Federal privacy law governs here, and it means what it says: you need the applicant's written consent in hand before you pull a credit report. Consent buried in a paragraph nobody read is not consent.
Nova Scotia
The applicant must be informed
Nova Scotia is the exception. The applicant has to be told the check will happen; signed consent is not separately required. Keep your own record that you told them: being right and being able to show you were right are different things.
Prince Edward Island
Written consent
Treated as the written-consent standard. Where a province's position is not confirmed to the same level as the two above, Kaza takes the more protective route rather than the more convenient one.
Manitoba
Written consent
Same approach. Written consent is never the wrong answer; assuming you did not need it can be.
What Kaza does about it
- The application form asks for consent to hold and use what it collects, as its own step with its own heading, and records which version of that text was agreed to and when, on the application and in the append-only activity log.
- A decision is recorded with its reason, so an approval or a decline can be explained months later.
- That is consent to the application, not consent to a credit check. Kaza runs none, so it asks for none and records none.
What is still on you
A credit report tells you about somebody’s finances. It does not license a decision made on a protected ground. Provincial human rights law applies to renting in every province Kaza covers, and no software can make a discriminatory decision lawful by documenting it neatly.
Collect what you need for the decision and no more. Information you did not need is information you now have to protect, keep, and eventually explain.
Where the screening itself happens
Nowhere, today. Kaza runs no credit or background check and is connected to no bureau, so nothing about an applicant is sent to one. The application form tells applicants exactly that. What Kaza does hold is the consent, the decision and the reason it was made.
The full list of third parties that ever receive data is on the sub-processors page.
What Kaza never asks a renter for
Kaza does not ask a renter for their employment, their income, their rental history or references. The application asks who they are, what they need, which homes they picked, and lets them add a piece of ID if they want to. That is the whole of it.
A landlord may ask for more, away from Kaza, as far as their own province’s law allows. That is their decision and their responsibility, and human rights law applies to every bit of it. What Kaza will not do is carry the question for them: there is no screen here that puts it to a renter, and there will not be one.